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If you want dwarf cars, you've got 'em

February 5, 2013

Years ago, while working at a small V8 muscle-oriented enthusiast magazine as a graphic designer -- not long after he did some work on a picture-disc version of notorious sleaze-punkers The Dwarves' Come Clean album -- your author was talking to a very friendly advertising client about what he sells. He started talking about parts for “dwarf cars.” Toyota rear axles and whatnot.

I'd seen the diminutive machines, but hadn't thought a whole lot about them, other than that they were little circle-track cars that looked as if the World of Outlaws had merged with the Southern California Timing Association.

Now, San Francisco-based filmmaker Jeff Diehl tells the story of Ernie Adams, father of the dwarf car. The Arizona man, for his own pleasure, crafts road-going, roughly 7/10-scale examples of automobiles from days past. Suffice it to say, dude is a paragon of DIY holiness.